Exotic Matter, the breathtaking show at David Shelton Gallery, stays on his walls only until May 8. Go marvel at Joey Fauerso's sexually charged, rigorously investigative and (yes) beautiful paintings, which are all about surface. Well, and depth. And also nudity. And renderings of exploding plant life so lush you want to disrobe and roll around in them. Michael Velliquette takes paper-cutting past the ordinary "painstaking" or "elaborate" territory into, well, the exotic; they're relics from a culture you're not altogether familiar with, but always knew was out there somewhere. The show's been held over for two weeks, and Michael McClure Ph.D., assistant professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, saw fit to write an essay about it; we think it's worth driving north to see it.
In addition to being a painter of substance and resonance, Joey Fauerso is an astonishing technician. It is work the trip out to Shelton's gallery just to see the dense black that Fauerso achieves in "Feel What it Feels Like"--in watercolor, a notoriously difficult medium.
Michael Velliquette's work is sort of like coming upon a new species of orchid or butterfly in the wild. In addition to being a painter of substance and resonance, Joey Fauerso is an astonishing technician. It is worth the trip out to Shelton's Stone Oak gallery just to see the dense black that Fauerso achieves in "Feel What It Feels Like" - in watercolor, a notoriously difficult medium.
"Fauerso explores the existential human condition in her cosmic figurative paintings, while Velliquette is making exquisitely detailed masks and totems using the child’s craft of colorful cut construction paper."
"Curator Miki Garcia, executive director of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum, has assembled a lively show brimming with wit and cleverness..."
The inaugural "Multiples" show, featuring works in a wide range of media by some of the region's most accomplished and respected artists, is well worth the drive.
Within Multiples, the aptly titled exhibition, the David Shelton Gallery has collaborated with several artists to create multiple works. The gesture seems to have been returned tenfold. Multiples delivers to the viewer a body of work united by craftsmanship, that delves into the distinctly modern while maintaining direct ties to the classical. As the viewer moves from one piece to the next, each body of work successfully adds to the exhibition a new dimension rooted in the individual artist's distinct sense of style. Shortly thereafter, this plethora of individuality proceeds to collide into an interesting, and well thought out exhibition.